


Elias Bouchard vs. Destiny

by With_the_Wolves



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: But actually it's just your evil boss manipulating you, Canon-Typical Body Snatching, Episode Related, Fate & Destiny, Gen, Spoilers for Episode: e193 A Stern Look (The Magnus Archives), Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29214690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/With_the_Wolves/pseuds/With_the_Wolves
Summary: "Working at the Magnus Institute is… surprisingly normal.At best, Elias expects to see his own terror reflected in his coworkers’ eyes. At worst, he fears they will all be like Wright, their eyes cold and monstrous and hungry. He expects to be brought into a world of darkness, to face true monsters that ordinary people never imagined existed.Instead, his job is just… paperwork."Written for Febuwhump, Day 4 (alternate): Identity Reveal
Relationships: Original Elias Bouchard & James Wright | Jonah Magnus
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139420
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Elias Bouchard vs. Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts: After struggling all day, I finally figured out how to make this fic work, and spent two hours writing some really, really good content. Around 9pm, my computer crashed and completely destroyed everything. It is now 1:30am, and I am. Deeply tired. Enjoy!

Working at the Magnus Institute is… surprisingly normal.

At best, Elias expects to see his own terror reflected in his coworkers’ eyes. At worst, he fears they will all be like Wright, their eyes cold and monstrous and _hungry_. He expects to be brought into a world of darkness, to face true monsters that ordinary people never imagined existed.

_Were you drawn here? Against your will?—_

Instead, his job is just… paperwork. Spooky paperwork, sure, but still paperwork. He talks to a lot of people on the phone, most of whom admit that the statement they gave was just a prank or a dare or whatever. Even the people who genuinely believe their experiences were real seem… more than a little unhinged.

_“It saw me through the pages, it’s coming”—_

He avoids James Wright, of course. It isn’t difficult. Wright spends most of his time in his office on the third floor, only occasionally coming down to visit Research. When that happens, it’s easy enough for Elias to excuse himself for a smoke break, avoiding Wright’s eyes the entire way. Elias doesn’t understand why his coworkers don’t do the same, although he imagines it would get very crowded in the alley behind the Institute if all of Research tried to take a smoke break at once.

The first time he sees his line manager return from a meeting with Wright, Elias watches her very closely, looking for… unease. Fear. Anything to reflect the way he feels whenever he so much as catches a glimpse of Wright in the halls.

She notices him looking, and smiles at him. No sign of distress in her whatsoever.

Elias returns to his work, but the moment sticks with him. She’d just spent thirty minutes having a meeting with a monster, and she isn’t the slightest bit disturbed.

_Have you ever had an experience that you would consider supernatural?—_

They don’t know.

All of these people who work here, who interact with Wright every day, and none of them know. Elias is the only one who sees it. Elias is… different.

Elias doesn’t get much work done, that day.

***

Two months later, Elias’s line manager informs him that he has a performance review scheduled with Mr. Wright.

His mouth is dry. “But—I thought you did my performance reviews.” He tries for a smile, but it’s weak.

“Mr. Wright likes to do an in-person review with everyone at the end of every quarter,” she says. She notices the look on his face, and softens slightly. “It’s no big deal. They usually only take five minutes or so. He just goes over the reviews I submitted, and asks if there’s anything he can do to improve your experience here.” She rolls her eyes. “Standard management stuff.”

“Okay,” Elias says, his voice faint. He has to go into that office again? Sit across from the thing that looks out from behind James Wright’s eyes, and just—what? Pretend he isn’t terrified?

_Allan’s lifeless body—_

_What did they do with his eyes?—_

“He won’t fire you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” his line manager says. Her voice is gentle, very different from the thinly-veiled annoyance she usually addresses him with. “Wright hasn’t fired anyone the whole time I’ve been here, and your reviews are fine. You’ll be okay.”

“Right,” Elias manages.

The day of the review, Elias seriously considers going to work high.

He decides against it. Wright would _know_ , and then he’d smile and ask Elias some question that he isn’t prepared for, that no one would be prepared for.

_What are you afraid of? A very sensible fear—_

Elias wonders what would happen if he just—skipped the review. It would be rescheduled, probably. He could skip it again, obviously, but he isn’t sure Wright would tolerate a farce like that for very long.

So, at 2:00pm, he climbs the stairs to Wright’s office. By now, his terror has faded to a blank numbness, an acceptance that he can’t stop whatever is about to happen. He almost feels like laughing.

“ **Do you enjoy your work here?** ” Wright asks, after he’s seated and the little introductions are complete.

“Yes,” Elias says, and it isn’t even a lie. He does enjoy the work. He enjoys the variety involved in followup, enjoys chatting with total strangers on the phone. He gets along with his coworkers, and even his line manager is more tolerable than other bosses he’s had. He’d be planning his career here, if not for James Wright’s unfortunate presence. As it is, he’s just trying to survive each day.

“ **Is there anything about working here that you… hate?** ”

Elias is not going to tell James Wright that he hates him. He’s _not_. That’s clearly what Wright wants, leering at him as he is, but Elias refuses to engage with these games.

“Uh—The commute,” Elias says. “It’s a bit far from my flat, and taking the tube every day isn’t exactly the height of luxury.”

“ **Yes, I’d imagine it would be difficult for you, dealing with the unwashed masses every day.** ” Wright is still smiling in that cold, slightly-bored way of his. Like what he’s just said is a normal sentence, and not—

_“So many gifts, and you’ve squandered them all”—_

“What?” Elias’s voice is soft now.

“ **Do you miss the luxury?** ” Wright asks, his smile curling up into something more vicious, and Elias—

_“Enough! Your friend died in a tragic murder, and it’s well past time you accepted that!”—_

_No, no, Allan knew what was going to happen, he told me—_

_“You had a bad drug trip. That’s all.”—_

_It wasn’t—I didn’t imagine this, there was a book and—_

Elias gasps, suddenly back in the present. Wright’s expression is exactly the same. Elias is trembling. This shouldn’t—Wright shouldn’t be able to—What do these questions have to do with his performance?

“Are we done here?” Elias manages, his voice soft to hide its shaking.

“ **Not quite,** ” Wright says brightly. “ **There’s still the matter of your past reviews.** ” Elias’ review forms are stacked on Wright’s desk, and Wright picks them up, flicking through them. “ **In general, Lydia’s feedback is very positive, but there are a few concerning things here. You chronically miss deadlines, and on a few of your cases you’ve neglected to follow very promising leads.** ”

“I’ll try to do better.” Elias’ voice is flat, toneless. The numbness is returning.

“ **See that you do** ,” Wright says. “ **I hope to see improvement by next quarter.** ”

Elias nods.

_What are they doing to his eyes?—_

Wright dismisses him, and he makes his way back downstairs. He should return to his desk, return to his caseload that he’s been largely ignoring in favor of panicking about his review.

But he—can’t.

He goes to the alley instead, lights a cigarette with trembling hands. His shaky legs won’t hold him, even when he leans against the wall, so he ends up sitting on the ground.

The first sob forces its way up his throat, and then—he’s crying.

Sobbing on the filthy ground in the alley behind his less-than-respectable workplace. Pathetic. What would Father say?

Probably, “Elias, I’ll be happy to talk to you once you get help for your drug addiction.” Christ.

While he cries, Elias tries to think of what to do. He could quit, he supposes. But he really does need this job. His bank account had been full when his parents first cut him off, and there were provisions in the trust to provide for his needs when he was still in school. Now, though, his money really is running concerningly low. He needs the paycheck.

His tears are just starting to slow when the door opens. Elias starts, turns his face away, trying to hide the fact that he’s crying while hiding from his job.

“Oh—sorry,” she says. Elias recognizes the voice, they work together in Research. He can’t quite remember her name—Megan, maybe? “I can go, if you want some privacy.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he says, and his voice wobbles. If she didn’t already know he’d been crying, she definitely does now.

She sits down on the step just outside the door. “Um—are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine.”

“Right. Yeah, I also like to come out here and cry when I’m feeling fine,” she says, her voice light with humor.

Elias smiles slightly, and wipes some of the wetness from his face. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“I’m all ears,” she says. “Unless you really don’t want to talk about it, in which case, keep your secrets.”

Elias doesn’t respond to that. Doesn’t know how to reply, really. It would be nice, to talk to someone about it, but—It seems cruel, to force someone else into this mess. If she even believed him.

“I just—” She takes a deep breath. “Okay, this is going to sound really weird, but… We look after each other, in Research. A lot of the people who work here don’t really have support networks in our personal lives—ghost stories attract lonely people, I guess—so we try to support each other. So… if you need someone to talk to about this, you can talk to me.

Elias takes a breath. Might as well try. “Have you—noticed anything… off, about Wright?”

“Oh, you mean his whole mind-reading thing? Sure,” she says. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t take a moment to consider.

“I—yes,” Elias says, a little unbalanced. She knew? “The way he—drags up all your worst memories.”

“Oh yeah, he’s like that,” she says, wincing. “Did you just have your first performance review? Those can be kind of intense.”

He nods, uncertainly. She’s talking about this as if it’s completely normal.

“You’ll get used to it eventually,” she says. “In research, we like to make jokes about it. She wiggles her fingers at him. “'Ooh, I know everything about you,’” she says mockingly, pitching her voice down.

Elias doesn’t laugh. Just stares. “Aren’t you afraid of him?”

She laughs, really laughs, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “What’s he gonna do, fire me? No. Why would I be afraid of him?” Then she sobers. “Are you afraid of him?”

Something sinks in Elias’s chest. He’d assumed that they didn’t know, that Elias was unique in being able to see Wright’s monstrous nature.

Turns out he’s just unique in being frightened by it.

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Just—had a bad performance review.”

She nods in commiseration, and he excuses himself not long after. Returns to his desk, his heart loud in his ears. He looks around at his co-workers, all of them so happy, so careless. Why aren’t they afraid?

_Why did you heed the call?—_

He doesn’t know.

He can’t trust them.

***

He asks to be transferred to Artifact Storage, and his request is accepted, albeit with some strange looks. No one requests to go _to_ Artifact Storage.

For him, it’s infinitely preferable to Research. The monsters in Artifact Storage are acknowledged, for one. Feared, treated with caution. Not allowed to run a so-called research institute. Not joked about. For two, the turnover rate is so high that he won’t have to deal with pretend camaraderie. He knows, now, that he can’t trust any of these people. He’s on his own.

For four years, he does his work, cataloging dangerous artifacts, sending the more junior assistants to do the more dangerous tasks. He doesn’t try to be good at his job, he doesn’t _want_ to be good at his job, but after years of working in Artifact Storage, he is by far the most senior member of the staff. He starts to pick up a few tricks. He becomes knowledgeable. People respect him.

His line manager says he’s looking to transfer to the Library, and asks if Elias would like to be recommended for the promotion. Does he want to be Head of Artifact Storage?

He should say no, but some part of him that never quite managed to kill its ambition answers for him. “I’d be honored,” he says.

***

Meetings with Wright never get easier. In four years, he manages to drag up everything Elias would rather keep hidden, everything he doesn’t want to think about. Allan is a popular subject, as are his parents. And there’s always—

_He cannot move. He cannot scream. What are they doing to his eyes?—_

Elias doesn’t get used to it, and when Wright schedules a meeting with him to discuss his forthcoming promotion, Elias dreads it just as much as that very first performance review.

“ **I am very impressed with your progress,** ” Wright says, steepling his fingers over his desk.

“Thank you,” Elias says.

“ **Nearly five years in Artifact Storage** ,” Wright says. “ **I wouldn’t have guessed it, but perhaps I should have. You’re not a brave man by any means, but what does that matter, when you’re running from the most frightening thing you can imagine?** ”

_What are they doing to his eyes?—_

Elias swallows. There’s something heavy in the air. He always feels watched, in the Institute, in Wright’s office, but this is—different, somehow. Closer.

“ **If you were more curious, you actually might have guessed it. If you’d looked into the history of the Institute, investigated the men who preceded me in this position. You might have noticed certain similarities. You’re smart enough to have put the pieces together, but alas.** ”

_—squandered—_

“ **You never were the curious sort, were you? You were more interested in self-preservation than answers. Keeping your distance from anyone who might drag you away from your… destiny.** ”

Wright stands, and Elias flinches. “I-I don’t—” This is wrong. Something is wrong.

_This is the place I know I should be—_

But—

“ **What did you imagine was calling you here?** ” Wright says, and now he’s close, too close, towering over him. Elias wants to stand, want to retreat, but he doesn’t—He can’t move—

Wright places his hands on the two arms of Jonah’s chair, trapping him. Elias shrinks back, as far as he can get. “ **Did you think it was something noble, that you were destined to be a hero of light, to put an end to the sickness of this place? You would drive a knife into my eyes, killing the monster and setting everyone free?** ”

He doesn’t know what he thought. He thought he was destined for something better, to be something _more_ than other people.

“ **You will be** ,” Wright says, leaning over him, too close. “ **Have you figured it out yet?** ”

He shakes his head wordlessly, a sob gasping from his throat.

Wright smiles. “ **James Wright didn’t either.** ”

***

When the thing that now controls his body takes over the Magnus Institute, they all think, _nepotism at its finest_.

Elias understands why he’s here, now. Understands the thing that called him here. Understands the many paths he could have taken, to reach a different end. Too late.

Elias’ eyes are carved out of his still-breathing body, and the Eye _feasts_ on latent terror, cultivated so perfectly, for so long.

Elias is replaced, and no one misses him. He himself ensured that no one who worked with him knew anything about him. And everyone else is dead already.

James Wright is discarded. Elias Bouchard is taken.

Jonah Magnus lives on.

**Author's Note:**

> @suttttton on tumblr, come commiserate with me about the many failures of technology


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